I'll always remember the time I did some work for a guy who was also a book maker. He owed me some money, and we agreed to meet on a corner in North Sydney.

He strolls down the street. We shake hands. He pulls out a roll - a fist size roll - no wallet would have been big enough - of hundred dollar bills from his pocket, counts out what he owes me and puts (the only very slightly depleted) roll back in his pocket.

From that I learnt that if you don't trust banks, your pocket is a comparatively safe place.

It reminded me of (to the best of my memory) the joke about some some US soldier in Fallujah pleading in the name of Al-Sistani (spelling?) to let him go - with the problem being he was pleading to Sunnis: "He's not only an American but also a shi'ite?". (HealingIraq had the bad luck of mentioning this joke hours before the lynching of 4 soldiers in Fallujah)

Footage on the news showed Naji protesting against the war. Some possibilities:

1) He was against the war but is taking advantage of the overthrow of Saddam.

2) He was in favour of the war but wanted to be seen as opposed to it.

3) He was against the war before he was in favour of it.

Ok i'll ask what the f*** was he doing carrying $35k in US currency??? Remembering that he is a Australian citizen.

Ok i'll ask what the f*** was he doing carrying $35k in US currency???

I was wondering that too. Particularly since he was supposed to be going to buy roof tiles to fix up his house. Must be a very big house to need $US35K worth of roof tiles, I thought.

And then the Evil Me started wondering whether this is a new way of money laundering, you know, for when "charities" and bank accounts are closed down. I mean, I've heard that the family are saying he was picked on because he's Australian but it's not as though you'd know that just by looking at the man. And he was supposed to be on that road only because he got detoured from his planned route because of a road side bomb. So it's not as though anyone, knowing he was Australian, could have known he'd be where he was when he was. Sounds odd to me.